In recent years, thinning and miniaturization of a semiconductor device and its package have been increasingly demanded. Therefore, as the semiconductor device and its package, flip-chip semiconductor devices in which a semiconductor element such as a semiconductor chip, etc. is mounted (flip-chip connected) on a substrate by means of flip-chip bonding have been widely utilized. In such flip-chip connection, a semiconductor chip is fixed to a substrate in a form where a circuit face of the semiconductor chip is opposed to an electrode-formed face of the substrate. In such a semiconductor device or the like, there may be the case where the back surface of the semiconductor chip is protected with a protective film to prevent the semiconductor chip from damaging or the like.
However, for the purpose of protecting the back surface of a semiconductor chip with the foregoing protective film, it is required to add a new step of sticking a protective film onto a back surface of a semiconductor chip obtained in a dicing step. As a result, the number of processing steps increases, so that the manufacturing costs and the like increase. In addition, the recent tendency toward thinning may possibly bring about a problem in that the semiconductor chips are damaged in a picking-up step of the semiconductor chips. Accordingly, until the picking-up step, semiconductor wafers or semiconductor chips are required to be reinforced for the purpose of increasing the mechanical strength thereof. In particular, there may be the case where a warp is generated on the semiconductor chip due to thinning of the semiconductor chip, and suppression or prevention thereof is demanded.